Category Archives: Recommendations

Coming to theatres today, Friday, July 19:
CASSANDRO, THE EXOTICO!

Director:
Marie Losier

World Premiere:
Cannes 2018 (ACID)

Select Festivals:
IDFA, CPH:DOX, Morelia, Ambulante, Tempo Doc, Mar del Plata, Santa Barbara, Jeonju, São Paulo, Hamburg, San Diego Latino, SF DocFest, Sarasota, Outfest Fusion, BFI Flare

About:
An intimate profile of the “Liberace of lucha libre” as he faces the end of his career.

Lucha libre, of course, is a wildly popular form of wrestling entertainment in Mexico, known for its masked combatants with colorful names and personalities. Perhaps less well-known is the presence of exóticos within the sport, male wrestlers who adopt feminine outfits, hair, and makeup, as well as exaggerated, campy, and stereotypically gay/feminine mannerisms. While often functioning as comic foils, they sometimes take center stage themselves as unlikely heroes in a culture of over the top machismo. Saul Armendariz, better known as Cassandro, the subject of Marie Losier’s warm portrait, is one such luchador, a record-holding champion who sees himself as a pioneer in bringing dignity to gay men within the field. The Texan-born 47-year-old Cassandro has competed within lucha libre for over 25 year, and he has the scars and broken bones to show for it. As Losier follows him over the course of five years, Cassandro reflects on the triumphs and adversities of his life – the latter including abuse suffered while young, and struggles with alcohol and drugs, though he proudly shows off his many years of sobriety to the camera – but soon comes to recognize that his body just can’t take the rigors of the ring any longer. He makes for an affable protagonist, and a surprisingly genuine and vulnerable one, in this well constructed and at times playful film.

New to VOD this week:
THE EXPERIMENTAL CITY

Director:
Chad Freidrichs

World Premiere:
Chicago 2017

Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Denver, St Louis, Big Sky Doc, Planet in Focus, DC Environmental, Salem, Sarasota, Revelation Perth, Architecture & Design fests in New York City, Washington DC, Los Angles, Rotterdam, Milan, Zurich, Copenhagen, and New Orleans

About:
A chronicle of an almost successful attempt to build the city of the future.

I previously wrote about the film for DOC NYC’s program, saying:
In the 1960s, frustrated by the growing problem of urban pollution, Athelstan Spilhaus, a visionary scientist and futurist comic strip writer, assembled a team of experts to develop a bold experiment: the Minnesota Experimental City (MXC). MXC would be the city of the future, a domed metropolis for 250,000 pioneering residents, built from scratch and using cutting-edge technology to prevent urban sprawl and pollution. Things didn’t quite go as planned, as explored in Chad Friedrichs’ fascinating look back at the would-be city of tomorrow.

Coming to theatres tomorrow, Friday, July 12:
GENERAL MAGIC

Directors:
Matt Maude and Sarah Kerruish

World Premiere:
Tribeca 2018

Select Festival:
Palm Springs, Cleveland, Florida, Doc Edge, Sidewalk, Philadelphia, Hot Springs Doc, Milwaukee, Denver, Hawaii

About:
A look back at an ahead-of-its-time tech company.

Smartphones have become ubiquitous in just over a decade, but, in 1990, the very idea of a handheld computer was so out there, that one of the companies that developed the concept was called General Magic. A spinoff of Apple just a few years after the introduction of the Macintosh, the company drew together some of the leading minds in technology, as well as partnerships with AT&T and Sony, promising groundbreaking developments. Fortunately for directors Matt Maude and Sarah Kerruish, company insiders also did a remarkable job of documenting their efforts, including filming key moments that are included in this intriguing if somewhat hagiographic history lesson of ambition, forward-thinking, and failure. The film chronicles the company’s efforts to develop, produce, and market the Magic Link, which, upon its release in 1994, was an expensive, clunky misfire that led to General Magic’s bankruptcy. Key players in the firm went on to make magic elsewhere, however, and, as the film argues, the principles behind the Magic Link informed the next couple of decades’ worth of invention that fundamentally have altered society’s relationship to technology.

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, July 9:
THE KLEPTOCRATS

Directors:
Havana Marking and Sam Hobkinson

World Premiere:
DOC NYC 2018

Select Festival:
CPH:DOX, Docville, Sydney, Cleveland, Docs Against Gravity, Sonoma

About:
An investigation into an audacious financial scandal.

The film screened as part of DOC NYC, for which our program notes read:
In one of the world’s biggest financial crimes, 3.5 billion dollars were stolen from a Malaysian government fund. Investigative reporters from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Hollywood Reporter follow the money as it travels across the globe, financing everything from luxury real estate and decadent parties to Martin Scorsese’s THE WOLF OF WALL STREET. Capturing white-collar crime at its greedy best, Havana Marking and Sam Hobkinson’s explosive film is a tale of embezzlement, scams, and greed run amok.

Coming to PBS’s American Experience over the next three nights, tonight Monday, July 8-Wednesday, July 10, and to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, July 9:
CHASING THE MOON

Director:
Robert Stone

World Premiere:
AFI Docs 2019

About:
A wide-ranging look at America’s quest to land on the Moon.

As noted previously, this month brings with it several space-focused documentaries, timed to recognize the 50th anniversary of humanity’s successful landing on the Moon. Robert Stone’s project, by virtue of its six-hour length and expansive focus, is likely the broadest one. Voiceover accompanies archival footage, rather than the standard PBS talking heads, and the docuseries benefits by making some unique choices in participants or protagonists on which to place the spotlight. In addition to familiar figures – astronauts like Buzz Aldrin, for example – Stone also foregrounds the stories of Ed Dwight, who was poised for a time to be the first African American astronaut, and Poppy Northcutt, who gained public attention as the first woman who was part of NASA’s Mission Control, among other figures. These profiles and others wisely serve the larger purpose of recontextualizing the Space Race across the multiple historical and societal developments of the 1960s – including civil rights, women’s rights, the growing influence of television and media, and, of course, Cold War politics – and, as a result, help distinguish this project from the others being broadcast this month.